Buoyancy is such a beautiful concept: the power to float or rise in fluid, or the power of supporting a body so that it floats upwards; relative lightness; or lightness or resilience of spirit (in a sense, cheerfulness). It’s this third definition I really want to focus on today, exploring how we can bring it into our yoga practices and our lives.
To get a feeling of why buoyancy is so precious, I suggest saying the word out loud: buoyancy (ˈboiənsē). It’s almost like sensational onomatopoeia – when you say it, you feel it!
Imagine floating in water, when you can truly feel the sensation of buoyancy. It’s a return to our birth body, the uterus swimming pool we used to be swimming in, and this is a state that most of us strive to return to through our spiritual and physical practices.
In yoga, we often talk about how we have everything we need; we are essentially this beautiful essence, then life happens to us and hardening happens to us so we adapt in good and bad ways to different situations and different movement patterns.
And when we can return to this essence of who we are, this sense of true buoyancy, through movement, it allows us to embody that delightful cheerfulness!
So how do we do this?
- I always say the bodywork that we do is the easiest, most successful gateway to changing how we feel both physically and emotionally – and so if we return to a more balanced body, we will feel more buoyant. That means we have to get up and move!
- There’s an element of stick-to-it-ness, or in other words, persistence. We have to be willing to stay on the path to getting more buoyant… because it won’t always be as easy or fun as the destination!
- To cultivate more buoyancy in your life, you need to spend some time trimming back the weeds. What or who in your life is dragging you down and anchoring you so that you don’t feel freedom and you don’t feel that buoyancy?
- Another tool you can use is music! You can make a playlist with fun, joyful, pleasurable, buoyant music to help get you there. Your brain is so persuadable that when you start to hear it, you will feel lighter. It’s actually that easy!
To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: lytyoga.com/blog/category/podcasts/
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